Testing the equality of two dependent kappa statistics

Procedures are developed and compared for testing the equality of two depen dent kappa statistics in the case of two raters and a dichotomous outcome v ariable. Such problems may arise when each of a sample of subjects are rate d under two distinct settings, and it is of interest to compare the observe d levels of inter-observer and intra-observer agreement. The procedures com pared are extensions of previously developed procedures for comparing kappa statistics computed from independent samples. The results of a Monte Carlo simulation show that adjusting for the dependency between samples tends to be worthwhile only if the between-setting correlation is comparable in mag nitude to the within-setting correlations, In this case, a goodness-of-fit procedure that takes into account the dependency between samples is recomme nded. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.